


A Template for Scars

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 10:50:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1776430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You were just like me, she shouts, when the prison has fallen and it’s only the two of them left, you don't get to do that again, the open fields traded for a snake-pit, you don't get to hide this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Template for Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt: After the prison falls - Beth discovers she has a scar fetish - first off, my apologies, my baseline is Rickyl so the story doesn't head in the same direction as the prompt might suggest.

 

 

 

Everybody carries some kind of bandana, rag, or terry cloth; it’s as much part of the kit as a sharpened knife or a loaded gun.  Daryl wears his hanging out of his back pocket - a short stump of a tail - Maggie has hers twined about her left wrist, for sopping up blood or catching water, wiping off dust; for tying down door handles or to gag someone’s mouth shut when the pain from a wound became too much to bear and the silence must be kept. 

Beth’s first cloth was a handkerchief - her daddy’s initials in the corner in a cursive loop – she could have taken one of her momma’s but typically they were made of lace, were folded up in small triangles, the creases ironed out, and were stacked in the top drawer of her parent’s bedroom under packaged, and fragrant, soap.  Beth took her daddy’s because the square was larger.  She didn’t want to rummage through her momma’s belongings, disturb the little idiosyncrasies she had indulged in, those small, delicate handkerchiefs made into neat triangles.

That first cloth lasted two months during the winter period but was abandoned in the storage units when they cleared out in a rush.

Maggie gave her a replacement bandana, twirled about until it resembled rope.  She pulled Beth’s arms straight, both of them - palms resting on top of Maggie’s lap - she let her thumb stroke across the unblemished skin on Beth’s right wrist, the blood thrumming close to the surface in railway lines of pale blue, the tendons bird-like.   Maggie always wore her bandana tied to the left wrist and it wasn’t before long when she tried to do the same for Beth.  Beth held herself loose, relaxed, in her sister’s grip, staring downward.   The scar bisected the vein, thicker and deeper at the entry cut, trailing off into shallow nervousness by the exit, it wasn’t particularly ugly, thin and a little jagged, but she could see the way Maggie’s expression darkened when she touched it. 

It’s the only scar Beth carries.

Maggie has dozens, on her knees, the palm of her hands; she fell out of a tree when she was seven.  She was always getting into scrapes, shop-lifting, boys, angry at her daddy for remarrying, smoking behind the school bike-shed like a punk.  Beth was more careful – delicate, her momma would say – conscious of her movements and her body, whereas Maggie bull-dozered through life, older and wilder.  You’re my golden princess, her momma used to whisper, you and your half-sister are as day and night. 

Beth stared at her self-inflicted wound, her suicide cut – and when Maggie tried to tie off the bandana, obscuring it from view – Beth held her in check. Sleeping beauty, resting atop her farmhouse coffin.  “No,” Beth said. “I like my wrist bare.” 

The scar wasn’t something Beth was particularly ashamed about; she didn’t flinch when other people saw it.  The attempt at suicide was written on her person - like the pages of a personal diary that could never be torn out - Maggie had let her wrist go, eyes searching out Beth’s, then smiled tumultuously. 

“You can wear it as a belt if you want, keep it on hand,” Maggie said and slipped the bandana through Beth’s belt-loop.

“I will.” 

Despite their differences, both physical and in temperament, the Greene sisters had always been uncannily close.  Some of the kids at high school called Maggie a slut for sleeping around with the boys - they called her free and easy when she went away to college, came back with a tongue and a temper sharper than a whip – some of the kids at school called Beth a simple idiot for wanting to marry and have a baby of her own, that there was no career option ticked in her box, it was what Beth wanted – and Beth in her quieter moments, wondered why it always had to be one or the other, the divide running sharp as the scar on her wrist, how easy those taunts were thrown, how easy it was to marginalize the choices of women.

 

 

 

“I won’t apologise,” Andrea said, one day after Beth tried to commit suicide.  “You were being selfish.” 

They weren’t alone - Maggie was serious when she told Andrea to stay away – Beth had looked up slowly, her wrists bandaged under a flag of white, her eyes startled.

“You were locked in a bedroom, not a cellblock, you could have hung yourself with a leather belt, used a coat-hanger, you could have killed yourself any number of ways if you were serious - instead, you dragged it out for over a week; threatening to do it, hiding in your bedroom the entire time.  It wasn’t about ending yourself, Beth; it was about punishing them, your sister and your father.  If you were mindful, you could have done it in thirty seconds…at least this way you know, and you’ll always know now; how much you want to live.”  Andrea had looked down, the fleece on her leather vest was turned up, hiding her profile, her tone was neither brusque nor gentle, resigned maybe, like she’d argued this out inside her own head a dozen times, lost all her passion to a repetitive debate.  “I can be your villain if you need me to.  I can.  But know this, if you were serious, you would have cut down the vein from wrist to elbow, not across it.”  Andrea had stared at the thin bandage around Beth’s wrist, dainty and pure white, and she shook her head once, as if Beth were an amateur.

“It wasn’t about punishing anyone.”  Beth denied, her voice scratchy, thorns residing in her throat.  She looked away from Andrea, toward Hershel, bustling outside the kitchen window, plucking tomatoes from the vine. 

Beth can still remember the moment of clarity when she comprehended what she had done - when Beth realised she didn’t want to die, not at all, not one little bit - the blood was running between her fingertips and suddenly everything seemed overly real, as if startled from a dream state.  Her voice broke as Lori smashed the door inward, words contorted with snot and tears.   _I didn’t mean to_ , she had sobbed.

“You could have said something nice, you know,” Beth whispered.  “You could have tried to reassure me.”  I’m sixteen, she wanted to say, maybe all I needed was to talk to someone who wasn’t family, was that so hard to grasp?  I didn’t need to be backed into a corner.

“Maggie, your father, Lori - they were  _already_  plying you with nice.  You needed the shock not the coddling.   It’s not a fairytale world, you don’t get to lie about in your bedroom like Sleeping Beauty hoping the nightmare will go away, and deciding to live, that’s your decision and no one else’s opinion matters one whit.  Not mine, nor Maggie’s, nor Hershel’s.  You have to decide for yourself.  But do us all a favour and stop screwing around – do it or don’t – but don’t hold it over people’s heads like a punishment; you can’t act the brat anymore.”

You’re my perfect princess, Beth’s momma used to say, blonde haired, blue-eyed, her skin china-white; except there’s a fine-line crack in the casing now, across blue veins - the only scar Beth carries is one she self-inflicted - and she can’t stop touching it, fingers running over the same passage the shattered mirror took, finding the grooves and imperfections, the small hooks, the puckered skin.  The memory of a physical hurt, opposed to all the emotional ones Beth carries is a relief.  It reassures Beth to see it there.  She won’t have it hidden.

Back then, Beth said: “I’m not the only one hiding in my bedroom.”  She jerked her chin toward the kitchen window, indicating the fields afar.  “Daryl’s no better, hiding out there with his head in the sand…he’s just like me now Sophia’s gone… You’re not so quick to criticize him, are you, how’s that so different?”

Andrea shrugged, said over her shoulder carelessly.  “Daryl was an adult when you were still messing your diapers - if he hasn’t learnt the lesson by now he never will.” 

Andrea had stepped through the swinging doors onto the veranda, boots thudding on the wooden planks and tripped down the stairs lightly, headed toward the collection of tents, both hands shoved deep inside her pockets.  Knowing Maggie was still within the periphery of hearing range, Beth had said aloud:  “I honestly dislike that woman.”

She was the only villain Beth ever knew, except Andrea wasn’t.  She never did apologise for forcing Beth’s hand – for providing her with the means and the opportunity to kill herself – Andrea believed in action above all else, she believed in  _free will._   Inertia, she said, was a lodestone.  It was just as likely to kill someone else (if they were bent on keeping you alive), as it would eventually kill you.   Holding suicide above Maggie’s head - asking her sister to join her in the pledge – Beth doesn’t know for sure, but she suspects Andrea might have despised her.

You’re wrong, Lori said later that night.  Sweetheart, she doesn’t despise you at all.   She was glad for your decision…and I think Maggie’s even gladder knowing she can rest.

Beth can’t.  The decision to live hasn’t wiped out all the uncertainties and terrors that wake her up during the night.   Unlike the scar on her wrist - there’s no before and after - a border line where she can feel better, act more positive, ready to sing aloud about rainbows and butterflies; there’s only the no man’s land of muddled emotion and the drive to keep going.

It was her suicide attempt.  Her only scar.

But she wonders when Daryl packed up his tent, set himself apart in the fields - a four-minute jog away from everyone else - if it hadn’t been something similar for him.  Their barn was chock full of walkers: they wandered through the paddocks, slipped under the fences, they got caught in the river-creeks, the farm wasn’t secure by any means, the barn overflowing with the sheer numbers that had wandered onto their property.  Beth wonders if Daryl were sleeping with one eye open every night – knowing there wasn’t anyone in shouting distance that could aid him if he were attacked in sleep – or if Daryl didn’t give a damn if a walker stumbled onto his position, peaceful as a baby, inviting the potential outcome.

Beth doesn’t know.  She never went into those fields to check for herself, stayed well clear of him, as far as she knows, the only persons who did approach were Carol and Dale.

 _You were just like me_ , she shouts, when the prison has fallen and it’s only the two of them left, you don't get to do that again, the open fields traded for a snake-pit, you don't get to hide this time.  _You were just like me - I remember_!

Daryl argues the same way he fights, dirty and mean, with full intent to harm, she feels hammered with every sentence he hurls.  

I’ve never eaten frozen yogurt, never had a pet pony, never got nothing from Santa Claus, never relied on anyone for protection before, hell I don’t think I’ve ever relied on anyone!  Never sung out in front of a big group in public, like everything was fun, like everything was a big game.  Sure as hell never cut my wrist looking for attention.

Unlike Beth, none of his scars are self-inflicted.

Daryl might not know it, but it was Beth’s bedroom he recovered in after being shot.  Beth had stripped her linen, found new sheets for her father’s patient to rest in, she had seen Daryl being dragged into her bedroom, caught between Rick and Shane and limp as a rag-doll.  His entire body was a road-map, razor thin lines on his chest and stomach that were barely noticeable, sharp brutal slashes adorned his back that were the width of two-fingers spread, the flesh knotted, raised in ugly welts.  She’d never witnessed so much damage before.  In the right light, on the rare occasions when Daryl’s hair was out of his eyes, she could see the cradle of his eye-socket, the spider-web damage, how one eye was perpetually more swollen than the other, the flesh loose and puffy. 

No, you don’t get it! That’s not the point I was trying to make, Beth feels like hollering right back, getting into his face, because Daryl’s fixating on the wrong thing, or trying to twist Beth’s words about.  Rich bitch, she hears and sees, and wonders if Daryl envisions her dead, sawed in half and staked out on a mannequin, if he found her like that, would he pull her down? Cover her over? Or leave her standing because nothing in death mattered? She wonders if the life Beth led before all of this was privileged by Daryl’s account: if he believes she’ll never make it, softened by frozen yogurt and Santa Claus and knowing there’s always someone to turn to for protection.  Come here dumbass, he hollers and yanks Beth close, hands rough and bruising, no care taken with her frame at all.  His arm is looped around her throat like a forgotten threat.  She can feel the heat of him against her spine, and Beth thinks maybe those words are self-inflicted too, dumbass, dumbass, how Daryl perceives himself.

His eyes are narrowed into mere slits, two days after the prison and Daryl’s barely spoken to Beth, his responses monosyllabic, but what he unleashes now is brimstone, it’s a tank rolling through Beth’s front lawn, unstoppable in its fury, its emotion cracking under the surface, grief given voice. 

You lost two boyfriends and you can’t even shed a tear!  Your whole family’s dead and all you can do is go out looking for hooch like some dumb college bitch!  You ain’t never going to see them again – _Rick_ – you ain’t never going to see _Maggie_ again!

Beth has had fantasies since she was sixteen years old - their selection pool wasn’t particularly large – with Rick and Glenn spoken for, Beth’s options had seemed limited to either Daryl, Carl, or T-Dog.  Eight months on the road in winter and Beth had been given to idle speculation, harmless mostly, and never with full intent.  Carl was a good shot, he had rail-thin limbs, freckles on his face, he was smaller and shorter and he looked at Beth with hope; but above all else he was a  _boy_.  When Hershel teased her one night, Beth said softly:  Dad, he’s three years younger than me.   She didn’t say eww, she wasn’t that cruel, not even with Carl out of earshot, but she had rolled her eyes at her dad, just to hear him laugh.

Daryl had looked at her sideways over the fire, expression inscrutable, and said gruffly:  My thoughts exactly.

She had a tendency to watch the hunter closely in those months, and Daryl, if nothing else, was incredibly observant. Beth felt the heat creep over her cheeks, words stuttering in her throat as she turned them over in her own mind – heard them again from a different perspective - and wondered if Daryl looked at Beth the same way Beth looked toward Carl.  Not three years younger and just a boy – but twice her age and Beth just another kid. 

Beth put the speculation aside when the prison became their home, when their numbers doubled and then became threescore, women and children, men, filling up their cellblocks, when Zach stumbled into her life with a cheeky grin and the roar of a car engine. 

Zach had three scars, one on the inside of his forefinger – paper cut, he said, bled like a sonofabitch would you believe – one on his foot when he dropped the garden shears on his toe as a three year old – and one on his knee, side-swiped when skateboarding.  Fascinated, Beth had kissed them all, let her mouth drag over the skin, tasted sweat and heat.  I was never that clutzy, she teased, mouth on his scars, and Zach’s fingers found her wrist, kissed the inside delicately. 

I don’t imagine you were.

He was sweet, and kind, and Zach made her laugh.  He was brave, and curious, and like Beth, Daryl Dixon fascinated him.  Sometimes, it felt like half the prison camp was fascinated.

Daryl doesn’t initiate touch when it comes to women – not unless it’s to aid in an established injury.  He massaged the knots from Carol’s shoulder, the bruises left behind from the shot-guns harsh recoil, he carries Beth when her ankle is injured, too swollen to walk.  When Beth stands on the railway tracks after the prison fell and cries her heart out, staring at the mangled bodies – Daryl looks over his shoulder once, slows his gait, but keeps walking.  There’s no comfort given.  No secretive touch.  He doesn’t reach out, soothe away the tears or offer Beth false promises. 

Beth has hugged him twice in her entire life, fingers searching out the scars on his back in the prison after Zack died – and once again, pressing her face into Daryl’s spine when everything fell apart and his voice broke on Rick’s name.  Both times Daryl stood loose, arms dangling uselessly at his sides.  He doesn’t return the embrace, doesn’t encourage the contact beyond staying still for it – Beth hugs him, hugs him tight, because Daryl is all she has left and he’s hurting just as much as she is, both their wounds named and spoken aloud.

The only person Daryl ever reached for – not for necessity or hurt, not to correct a stance or a firing position – but  _sought_  to touch, was Rick, hand sliding across the man’s stomach at the prison, shoulder to shoulder, and Beth wonders when they finally find him  - because they’re out there, Beth believes that with every fibre in her soul – if Daryl will sidle into his space, press against the length of Rick’s body, biceps, hands, hips and thighs, if he’ll talk about what he’s feeling without having it ripped from him, if he’ll offer Rick comfort, and false lies if necessary – _that wasn’t you_ – if he’ll do all the things he’s denied Beth and have it unravel seamlessly.

Beth carries one scar on her body – a self-inflicted wound – there are many others besides.




 


End file.
